KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:41 -46
V. 44: On the seventh time, he reported, "There's a cloud as small as a man's hand coming from the sea." Then Elijah said, "Go and tell Ahab, 'Get [your chariot] ready and go down so the rain doesn't stop you.' "(HCSB)

I don't remember having heard of Elijah's servant before in this story. The Bible often works on a "need-to-know" basis. Suddenly he was there, ready to obey Elijah's commands. In the next chapter we will see Elijah leave him behind once again. For the moment, he was serving as Elijah's look-out and mediator with Ahab, a somewhat precarious position to hold, I would think.

I find Ahab's demeanor in this part of the story puzzling. Unlike good old Jezebel, as we shall see, he didn't appear to be mad at Elijah for slaughtering all those prophets. Then again, Ahab had just personally witnessed the power of God. But, as I remarked previously, he didn't allow this event to change his heart either. He appeared to be in a stupor. Elijah told him to eat and drink, so he ate and drank. Elijah suggested that he better get home on his chariot lest he get stuck in the mud from the impending rainstorm, and Ahab took off as soon as there was a sign that a storm was coming. Apparently he was in a total daze.

In a manner that is not explained to us, God apparently enabled Elijah to have supernatural strength to run faster than the chariot and get to Jezreel ahead of Ahab. What's more: Since Elijah's temporary servant is right there with him in what follows, he may have been endowed with the same gift. Unfortunately, we are never told what the purpose was for Elijah to race on spiritual superchargers at that time.

So, now the grand demonstration was over. The drought was coming to an end, and God had manifested himself in unmistakable ways. If you're about to experience a feeling of let-down, you're in good company because the same thing is going to happen to Elijah. For the moment, let's just enjoy the fact that we've reached the end of this ordeal and feel the rain pouring down on us. Yahweh had won, and nobody, not even Elijah, was coming out of this event truly happy. We'll talk about the consequences next time.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:20-46
V. 38: Then Yahweh's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. (HCSB)

There is an interesting ambivalence in this passage that probably only some nerd with his nose stuck in the Old Testament might notice. (So, how did I notice it?) Strictly speaking, Elijah's sacrifice on Mt. Carmel was illegitimate. After all, sacrifices were supposed to be limited to the temple in Jerusalem. Apparently Mt. Carmel used to be a "high place," a site for worship, which could be either pagan or to Yahweh. In this case, it was a place where people used to do sacrifices to Yahweh because there were the remnants of an Israelite altar. But high places were no longer supposed to be used. Needless to say, Elijah was not in trouble for doing a sacrifice there since he was acting strictly on God's command.

Once the prophets of Baal had worn themselves out with their self-immolating limping dance, Elijah took over. He rebuilt the altar, cut up the bull, dug a trench around it, and then had the people pour buckets and buckets of water over everything. By the way, I once heard that someone somewhere had suggested that maybe Elijah had discovered oil in the ground, and that he cheated by pouring a flammable liquid all over the set-up. The fact that he had other people do the drenching puts an end to that theory. (As always, once you've opened up the door to revising the text, you've lost the right to use the text at all.) Furthermore, there is no oil in Israel, and certainly not on top of Mt. Carmel.

So, Elijah said a simple heartfelt prayer, and God sent down fire, which consumed not only the wood, but the bull, the water, and even the altar. The audience was treated to the conflagration of a life time. Their reaction was predictable, as they unanimously acknowledged that Yahweh was God. They even obeyed Elijah's command to have all of those false prophets executed (a measure that is no longer applicable to our day, so don't get any ideas). But don't think that we are witnessing a nation-wide conversion of all the people of Israel. As the excitement of the moment wore off, things would return to "normal" for Ahab and most of the people. Jezebel, probably at home in Samaria, was obviously not affected in the least.

But that's a conclusion that should not surprise anyone. The reality of God is not established by consensus. As we read in Romans 1, the existence of God is knowable to everyone (whether you want to understand this as an innate idea or natural theology does not matter for our purposes). But Romans 1 also goes on to point out that pretty much everyone rejects that knowledge. That does not invalidate the evidence or the conclusion. Elijah had performed a mighty work to demonstrate the reality of God, and the results stand, today just as much as 2,800 years ago.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:20-46
V. 29: All afternoon, they kept on raving until the offering of the evening sacrifice, but there was no sound, no one answered, no one paid attention. (HCSB)

So, there they were: 450 prophets of Baal, doing their traditional limping dance, round and round in a circle, calling on Baal to manifest himself and light their sacrificial fire. All day long they kept it up. When Baal did not appear to respond, they started to cut themselves until there was blood dripping everywhere. Still, there was no signal from Baal, let alone even the tiniest of sparks. Not only that, but whenever the noise of their wailing seemed to die down a little bit, they could hear Elijah taunting them.

By the time that they were done, they must have been utterly exhausted. Whether they were discouraged I cannot say because I do not know whether any of them expected any better results from Elijah and Yahweh. But it is in the nature of religious people to rationalize what to others might appear to be a failure. So, I can envision at least some of them encouraging each other: "Well, we didn't get any fire, but I sure could feel the spirit of Baal, couldn't you? We put on a remarkable service, didn't we? I mean, we really electrified the atmosphere. Heck, if it hadn't been so humid, I'm sure our bull would have burned up like tinder. We need to remember that Baal always answers our prayers; it's just that sometimes he says 'yes,' sometimes he says 'no,' and sometimes he says 'wait.'" I must confess that, even after decades of studying world religions, it is still difficult for me at times to understand the impulse that causes some people to pursue what is very evidently mere futility. Please understand what I'm saying here; what I have in mind here are not all religious actions, but those that should be demonstrably pointless, even to the most committed adherent.

Emile Durkheim was an anthropologist who, in my humble opinion, did not get much right. He attempted to derive the origin of all religion from totemism as a purely social phenomenon. Specifically, he pointed to the times when all the clans of a tribe gathered, and the mass meeting generated a psychological frenzy, which eventually took on a life of its own as religion. There is no question nowadays that Durkheim was extremely selective in which cultures he used to make his case, and that even then his data did not support his conclusions. Still, I think he was on to something that is occasionally (neither always nor everywhere) very real, namely how a large group of people can work itself into a religious fervor in which they convince themselves of supposed realities that they would never have accepted in a more sober setting.

I would like to talk of things closer to home, but I'm afraid that examples too close to home will distract from my point rather than clarify it. So, I'll just mention the South Indian festival called Taipusam, which receives a great amount of attention in places of Tamil emigration, such as Singapore and Malaysia. I have witnessed it personally several times, as the participants allowed themselves to be pierced through the cheek and tongue or walked on spiked shoes--with the spikes turned up, not down--and carried the kavadi, an enormous structure, oftentimes fastened into their chests, all in honor of the god Murukhan (Subrahmanyan), who in reality does nothing for them. But this festival of self-immolation goes on year after year. I put some pictures below. Feel free not to scroll down.

Come to think of it, as I'm writing this I'm reminded of something that I wrote in this blog not too long ago. In referring to ancestor veneration I said something like, if you start with the premise that a person's eternal destiny depends on what he or she does as a human being, it is only a natural step to go from there to the idea that the necessary efforts would not be limited just to that person's life time, but encompass several generations. I guess a similar logic may apply here as well. If your eternal destiny depends on your own actions, and if your supposed gods are particularly impressed if you make yourself miserable on their behalf, why not cut yourself, rant and rave?

How wonderful is the grace of God, who sent his Son, who willingly underwent torture on our behalf, so that we are free simply to accept his salvation!

A few Taipusam Pictures

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KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:20-46
V. 21: Then Elijah approached all the people and said, "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow him."(HCSB)

I already know that it's going to take more than one entry to get through this story because I'm getting hung up on the very first verse, viz. v. 20. Ahab actually took up Elijah on his challenge. I'm amazed. Elijah had already given a pretty serious demonstration of the power of God by predicting the drought, which set in as predicted. Did Ahab really think that in any kind of confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Yahweh would lose? Maybe he was more afraid of losing face to Jezebel by not participating than of what the outcome might be. Then again, he might not have had any inkling that Elijah was setting up a contest. But even if not, I'm surprised that he complied so easily with Elijah's request. After all, he was the king, and Elijah was just an annoying prophet. He conscripted all of the official prophets of Baal and Asherah, and he called for a general meeting of all the people of Israel to be there as an audience.

Mt. Carmel is set up in such a way that, if you can think away all the contemporary buildings that clutter it today, it would have been a natural stage back then. A huge crowd of people would be able to see what transpired on top. Furthermore, until we all got used to microphones and PA systems, public speakers learned how to project their voices, and audiences learned how to listen carefully, so that the humongous crowd gathered there, would have been able to hear what Elijah was saying.

And what he's saying could be considered to be pretty audacious. "Let's once and for all decide which deity is God: Baal or Yahweh. Whoever comes out the winner today, he is the one whom you should worship!"

I suggested a second ago that I was surprised at Ahab's consent to hold the contest. I'm not at all surprised at Elijah's confidence. He knew that, regardless of what Yahweh might do (and obviously God must have given him instructions to begin with), there was no way that Baal could win because Baal was not real, and his religion and mythology were not true. Even the smallest sign from the true God would outdo whatever Baal could produce because Elijah was convinced that Baal could produce nothing.

Now, again, let me make sure we understand each other. If you're a Christian, unless you have received direct instructions from God, as Elijah obviously did, you have no business setting up contests, creating power encounters, or putting God to the test. However, there are times when God has called people to demonstrate that he is real.

Do you remember when, in Don Richardson's book, Peace Child, the local people actually started to turn to Christ? It was not right after Richardson had explained to them how Christ's substitutionary atonement was similar to their custom of clans exchanging "peace children" with each other. Giving them this "redemptive analogy" was very important because it helped the people to understand the gospel for the first time. But no one converted immediately thereafter. It was not until one of Richardson's children fell into the crocodile-infested water and he demonstrated a confidence and faith that was imponderable for the local people that they started to desire for Christ to be in their lives.

St. Boniface (whose first name in German was Winfried, by the way) was not nearly as polite as Don Richardson, but created a power encounter similar to the one that Elijah is about to set off. The good people of northern Germany were sure that if anyone harmed a particular oak tree dedicated to Thor, all kinds of evil things would happen to them. Boniface gave a demonstration that, as a matter of fact, things were not so, and he took an axe and chopped down the tree. I believe that we can agree that he was pretty rude, insensitive, politically incorrect, and did not show much respect for the local customs. But he was effective. And, in contrast to, say, Constantine or Charlemagne, he killed a tree and not a bunch of people to prove God's power. Once the spell was broken, many Germans converted to Christianity, and there actually exists a literary cycle of Thor departing the land, sad and heartbroken because the people have forsaken him. Given the opportunity, someone should have pointed out to Thor that he missed his chance to demonstrate his reality.

I don't think that there were many semesters when I taught the required course in apologetics at Taylor (Contemporary Christian Belief) when I didn't start out on the first day saying something like, "If Christianity is false, you should not believe it." And again, I do not believe that saying so involved any risk. Christianity is, indeed, able to withstand the hardest questions. Of course, if unbelievers change the standard rules of historiography, logic, or hermeneutics, or set up unfulfillable requirements (e.g. unbiblical ones), then Christianity cannot meet their demands, but then they have already lost the challenge by their ad hoc adjustments to reality and how it functions. Just as Elijah was confident that Baal could not win the contest, I am sure that neither Shiva, Gautama, or Mazu, nor materialism, atheism, or pantheism, can stand up to the truth of the objective reality of God, the creator, who has revealed himself in scripture and in Christ.

One could almost think that Elijah was going just a little bit over the top with his demeanor. Doesn't he show just a little too much swagger as he addresses the people? Not really. Not that I think that "swagger" is the most desirable attitude for Christians to manifest in general. There's a lot to be said for humility. But this was a moment when God was taking the field, as it were, and Elijah was representing him in this superbowl of deities. He surely was entitled to manifest his assurance as the prophets of Baal won the coin toss and got the first opportunity to score a win for their god.

Sure, we know how this is going to come out. But there's plenty more to reflect on as we continue with this story next time.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:15-19
V. 24: When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "Is that you, you destroyer of Israel?"(HCSB)

There is something so deeply tragic in this encounter between Elijah and Ahab, it almost hurts me to write it. We see this so many times, and it's as though we can't do anything about it.

Before I go on, and lest I forget to do it, let me put in a quick plug for the new book by my friend and former colleague Jim Spiegel: The Making of an Atheist. I believe that Jim is going to make a similar point as the one that I'm getting at tonight, but, of course, in far greater detail.

Ahab, as I'm sure you remember, made the worship of Baal the official religion of the northern kingdom of Israel. It's not that Ahab wouldn't have known about Yahweh or that he could have been ignorant of the fact that he was reigning over a kingdom that belonged to God. It was still called Israel, after all. Jerusalem and the temple were only a day's ride away, and the southern kingdom was undergoing a gigantic revival under Jehoshaphat. In fact, somewhere around this time, God was giving Jehoshaphat a truly miraculous victory over an invading army. In short, Ahab could not have not known that God had a claim on him and that the king was breaking an implicit covenant with God. For that matter, Elijah had made it quite plain that the drought and famine were a punishment for Ahab's idolatry. Finally, could Ahab really have thought that Yahweh would be indifferent to Jezebel's attempt to exterminate all of Yahweh's prophets?

Nevertheless, Ahab's first words to Elijah were an accusation: "Ah, there you are, the one who is destroying Israel!" Note that Ahab had no problem making the connection between Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh, and the drought. But it was all Elijah's fault, and by implication perhaps Yahweh's, certainly not Ahab's.

We know what follows, and we'll talk about it next time. Elijah clarified to Ahab that which Ahab knew already, namely that the drought was a consequence of Ahab's apostasy, and then God showed his reality and power on Mr. Carmel. None of that made the least little difference to Ahab and his charming wife.

How many times have you see the same kind of thing? I shall never forget the woman I saw being interviewed on TV maybe twenty years or so ago, when AIDS was just at the peak of news reports and discussions. This woman, who was clearly identified as what we euphemistically call "sexually active" had AIDS and was angry. She had been treated unfairly, and the injustice was blatant: Nobody had told her about condoms. Now she had to suffer because this information had supposedly been withheld from her. Needless to say, the reporter who interviewed her never asked her whether she had ever heard people say that her lifestyle was sinful, immoral, wrong, or whatever adjective might have been appropriate. That would have been judgmental. I cannot imagine that, living in the United States, she had never heard people say anything along that line. Now, in order to maintain immaculate fairness, I need to stop there in making hypotheses concerning her and her particular situation. But I'm using her as an example precisely because of the remoteness, so that nobody reading this entrywill think that I'm talking about them specifically. The reality is unavoidably plain, though. How many people are angry at God because they are suffering the natural consequences of violating the most basic rules that God has instilled in his creation! How many times do we hear people rationalize their unbelief in all kinds of ways, when what it really comes down to is the fact that God won't play by their rules, rather than the other way around!

As I said, Elijah's words made no difference to Ahab or Jezebel. But they have been recorded in the Bible so that they might make a difference for us. It's not much fun for me to write these words. I'd much rather see the ironic, somewhat comic, side of things. But I can't let the occasion of being on this story pass to remind us: Blaming God for enforcing his rules is futile.

But let me end on a positive note. Just because Ahab rejected the opportunity to repent does not mean that nobody else can. God will not be trivialized, but neither will he withdraw his offer of grace. And, come to think of it, there isn't one of us who is God's child, who wouldn't have remained in a state of rebellion against him if it wasn't for the fact that he first of all reached out to us and said, "I understand how you feel. I know why you're angry and that you think that you can't help it. That's why I sent my son to die for you."

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18:1-15
vv4b-5.: Obadiah was a man who greatly feared the LORD and took 100 prophets and hid them, 50 men to a cave, and provided them with food and water when Jezebel slaughtered the LORD's prophets.(HCSB)

Forgive me for a moment of reminiscence. I once wrote a devotional on this passage. That was back in 1987 when I was contributing more or less regularly to a German devotional quarterly, called Stille Zeit. It was a day on which I didn't have any classes to teach, so I got on my bike after lunch, rode the 16 miles to the nearby Mounds State Park, sat on the bench under the trees next to the big mound, cranked out about half a dozen or so devotional pages, and rode home in time to cook dinner, which was my regular chore at the time because June was homeschooling the boys. That seems like a long, long time ago, and if it wasn't for the philosophical phenomenon of the persistence of a person's self-identity that keeps Buddhists on the ropes, I'd be tempted to say those were all totally different people.

As it is, I remember what I wrote, sparing myself the trouble of going upstairs to check my files. I won't repeat it here since it was in German. Roughly translated I said that Obadiah was "the man"! (By the way, this is not the same Obadiah as the one whom you'll find under the so- called minor prophets in the Old Testament.) This Obadiah was an administrator in charge of Ahab's palace, not an enviable position as far as I can tell. Ahab was not an easy person to deal with (taking into account the episodes yet to come), and Jezebel, his wife, was downright evil, particularly set on routing out belief in the true God, as demonstrated by her efforts to kill his prophets. I can't help but think that she was forever suspecting vast right-wing conspiracies. And here was Obadiah, a believer in God, in charge of the household. He was obviously competent in carrying out his duties, and he clearly did not call attention to his religious differences with the royal couple. But when God needed him, he was right there on the spot. He risked his life by hiding a hundred prophets when Jezebel was on her rampage. And he turned out to be the person who would mediate between Elijah and Ahab.

I'm not an Obadiah; I tend to be more center-stage. But I'm extremely thankful for the many Obadiahs who are members of the Body of Christ. My mom was one, someone who kept a low profile, but always was there when needed, influencing many lives for the Lord, never getting into the limelight. These are the people who are the backbone of the church, representing Christ on earth until he returns.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 17:17-24
V. 22: So the LORD listened to Elijah's voice, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived.(HCSB)

Human beings seem to be superstitious by nature, and tend to give themselves more credit for either good or evil than they are entitled to.

-----To return to my rant above, scientists keep finding new reasons why we must be responsible for global warming. Remember when the culprit was our use of fluorocarbons and the supposedly increasing ozone hole? Since that hasn't been found to be sufficient, we are now blaming CO₂, a gas that we exhale routinely and that is essential for the rainforest to survive. Rainforests make oxygen (O₂), but they do so by chemically converting carbon dioxyde (CO₂) into oxygen. Take away enough CO₂, and the trees will die. You can verify this on your own with an experiment, assuming you are sufficiently heartless to want to kill a plant. Wrap a plant in cellophane and watch it choke to death, not because of oxygen deprivation, but because of carbon dioxyde of an accumulation of oxygen at the cost of sufficient carbon dioxyde.

---But I find that once again I have digressed somewhat. Let me return, if I may, to my main point.

As I was saying, human beings seem to be superstitious by nature, and tend to give themselves far more credit for good or evil than they are entitled to. So, the son of the widow of Zarepath and died, and she immediately reasoned that his illness and death were caused by the fact that God had sent Elijah in order to punish her for her sins. Nonsense. Given the rest of the story, it is just possible that God allowed this bad event to happen in order to accredit Elijah, but we're best off not drawing any conclusion as to why God allowed it to occur.

Nevertheless, Elijah was seriously unhappy, both the with boy's death and with bearing the brunt of his hostess's interpretation. He asked for the boy's body, carried it upstairs, and cried out desperately to the Lord to restore his life. Now pay attention to how what follows is described: The Lord listened to Elijah, and the boy's life returned to him. In other words, it was God who resurrected the boy, not Elijah.

Of course, you knew that already. Really? Are you sure that the credit in the story goes to God and not to Elijah? A lot of people might say so, but in the depths of their minds wonder about the technique that Elijah may have used to bring about this miracle. Christians may try to figure out what distinguished Elijah so that God could use him for a miracle, and many non-Christians are hopelessly confused on the difference between miracles and magic. I have had the opportunity to write a number of articles on miracles, and I'm hoping that I will get the opportunity to write one more in which I can elaborate on this distinction.

If I may, please let me narrate my bibliography on miracles. Way back in 1980-something I checked with Gary Habermas if he might be interested in co-editing with me an anthology of articles on miracles. Gary was all in favor, and I inquired on the idea with a publisher, who was not. In fact, that publisher was sufficiently discouraging that I dropped the idea altogether. Then in the early nineties, Gary chatted with Doug Geivett, and they revived the idea. Let me assure you that they went the extra mile and a half to make sure that I was okay with the idea of their taking over what could have been construed as my idea, though--really--how original is the idea of an anthology on miracles anyway? I was thoroughly happy to let them take a shot at it. They turned to a different publisher, who was excited about the proposal, and the result was the book, In Defense of Miracles (InterVarsity Press, 1997), which has been quite successful. In contains my article, "Recognizing a Miracle," in which I make the point that atheists and other confirmed skeptics are hardly in a position to decide which event may legitimately be construed as a miracle since, if you don't believe in God, your world view pretty much closes you off from accepting any event as miracle. I had also already made that point as a part of my discussion on miracles in Reasonable Faith (B&H, 1993), converted into its paperback version, No Doubt About It (B&H, 1997). It's been an incredible amount of fun reading the skeptics' reactions because for some reason they feel that, if they cannot be convinced of the facticity of a miracle (which constitutionally they cannot), nobody is allowed to call an event a miracle. What piffle!

Since then I have been allowed to publish two more articles on miracles. In "Miracles" in To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian World View edited by Francis J. Beckwith , William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, (InterVarsity, 2004), I don't say anything novel, though it turned out to be a cute article. Then, in "Where is the Problem? Miracles and their Omniscient Critics" Areopagus Journal 8/2(March/April 2008), I make the point that, even if skeptics express a theoretical openness to the possibility of miracles, the conditions they set are such that a miracle could never truly be said to occur. In other words, they really already know that miracles cannot happen. But to be sure of that point, you really have to be omniscient. In the course of writing that article, it occurred to me that many skeptics are confused on the difference between a miracle and magic. In short, the distinction is that a miracle is a free act performed by God, whereas magic is a technique by which a human being manipulates spiritual forces, so that the result depends on on whatever power the person may have and to whatever degree the person has mastered the required method with sufficient proficiency. Magic is not a part of Christianity.

If you look over various discussions held on the internet concerning religion or the truth of Christianity, you are sure to run into someone saying something clever like, "I challenge any Christian who really believes in God to produce a miracle right now (such as jumping off a tall building without harm), and I will believe in God." Interestingly, that kind of silly comment is pretty similar to the devil's temptation of Jesus in the desert, and Jesus repudiated it immediately. In any case, it betrays an utter confusion between miracles and magic. What the skeptic is asking for is that the Christian perform a magic stunt. (Of course, some either presumptuous or deceptive [allegedly] Christians high-profile preaches are oblivious of that distinction as well, and, thus, don't much help the Christian cause.) God does miracles. Believers may ask God to do a miracle, but they neither can nor should do magic.

Look again at that picture of Elijah agonizing over the corpse of that boy. He shows no confidence. I cannot imagine any of that moronic smirk or the slimy piety on his face, which you see on the face of televised faith-healers. There is nothing there but desperation. God brought the boy back to life. He responded to Elijah, but he did so because he wanted to, not because Elijah had found the lever to move his arm.

Could you use a miracle in your life right now? I would love one. If God wishes to do so, he may send you one, and maybe even to June and me. I promise I will be happy for you, just as I am happy for Elijah, the widow, and her son. But most of the time God's objective is for us to manifest trust and reliance in him without any special effects. In the long run, perhaps, the greater miracle is for us to be satisfied with whatever hardship he sends our way than for our faith to depend on miracles, let alone magic. Nobody said this was going to be easy. A word to the skeptic: It is highly unlikely that God will fulfill your conditions, but don't be surprised if he performs that much greater miracle of changing your heart. That is my prayer for you.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 17:8-15
V. 12: But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I don't have anything baked—only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the jug. Just now, I am gathering a couple of sticks in order to go prepare it for myself and my son so we can eat it and die."(HCSB)

"Is this a convenient time to stop by for a few months?"

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and he certainly couldn't have been more surprising than by the way he guided Elijah. Now that the brook had dried up, and the ravens weren't serving Elijah food any longer, God sent him to another unexpected place: to Phoenicia, specifically to a small town of Zarepath in that country, where a widow would be his hostess for the next while. Remember that when we are talking about widows in the ancient world, we are not referring to women who have retired on their husbands' life insurance policy plus a small social security check, but about women who, in the absence of a caring relative, were left on their own with no resources. Elijah would be dependent on the hospitality of someoneone who most likely wouldn't have anything with which to be hospitable.

That was precisely the situation as Elijah came to the outskirts of the town. He encountered a woman and asked her for a little cup of water. When she had given it to him, he asked her for a piece of bread.

---- Excuse me me, Elijah, in case you haven't noticed, there's a famine going on! Remember, you predicted the drought yourself, and it came about. Now you are asking one of the least likely people in the land to feed you. Where is this widow going to get food for you? ----

As it turned out, this was no ordinary widow. She was a resident in the idolatrous country of Phoenicia, but she believed in Yahweh, the God of Israel. She invoked him by name as she told Elijah that she didn't have anything edible to share. She had just enough flour and oil to make a little bit of bread for her and her little boy, and then all she could do was to wait for starvation to take their lives.

But Elijah had obviously received explicit instructions from God. He trusted the Lord unreservedly and, much more significantly, so did the widow. Elijah asked her to use up whatever remnants she had left to make him some bread on the assurance that God would miraculously keep the flour and oil from running out. Would you have complied with the request? This lady obviously didn't know that the person to whom she was talking was the great prophet Elijah, one of the famous people of the Bible. Presumably all that she knew was that here was an Israelite far from his home on the other side of the Jordan, but one who shared her belief in Yahweh and predicted the physically impossible. Was that enough grounds to give away her last little bit of food on the chance that she and her son might starve to death even earlier?

Astonishingly, it was. The widow followed Elijah's instructions, and--just as Elijah had promised--neither the oil nor the flour got used up. There still was enough left for her and her son. And when they were done, it still wasn't exhausted. God miraculously kept all of those ingredients from running out. They were able to satisfy their hunger with the same few remnants for a long time.

This is not an easy story for me to tell. It seems so simplistic. Despite the drought and famine, the Lord kept the prophet, the widow, and her son eating. So, can I draw any direct inferences for us? Is God going to keep our box of Mrs. Butterworth's pancake mix from emptying while we're going through a tough time? It doesn't even need oil; all you add is water. ---- I don't think it works like that. Obviously, Elijah had received some assurance from God that the widow's supplies would be expanded miraculously. I haven't received any such messages from him, so I can't count on such a miracle occurring.

Forgive me if I've made this point too many times, but I need to remind myself of it incessantly. My trust in God needs to be in him, not in the expectation of his pursuing a specific course of action. My tendency is to trust God and to map out exactly what I think he might do. But I need to trust him implicitly without having a clue as to what he might do. That's hard. Really hard sometimes.

But then again, if I can't trust the infinite creator of the universe and the God who sent his son to die for my sins, whom else could I trust? It may not be easy, but it beats any alternatives with which I'm familiar.

KINGS AND KINGDOMS
	Bible Reading: 1 Kings 17:1-7
V. 1: Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers, said to Ahab, "As the LORD God of Israel lives, I stand before Him, and there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!"(HCSB)

Believe it or not, the last time we discussed a Bible passage was on October 13, and I will pick up where we left off in 1 Kings. It's actually a pretty convenient place to start since it's the beginning of the Elijah and Elisha cycles.

Let's make sure we're properly oriented. We are in a time period when the Hebrews were divided into two kingdoms: the southern kingdom of Judah, which was governed by the descendants of David and Solomon, and the northern kingdom of Israel, whose kings came from constantly changing dynasties. If you count the week -long reign of Zimri as a dynasty, we're on the fourth one already. It will also be the longest one so far, encompassing four links.

In order to separate Israel from Judah's Jerusalem, which housed the temple and the worship of Yahweh, Jeroboam invented his own religion, based on the worship of golden calves, and his successors continued it after him. However, the current office-holder, Ahab, had a different idea. He married the princess of Sidon, and instituted her religion, the worship of Baal, as the official faith of the northern kingdom.

When I left off the story back October, I said that God would intervene more directly with Ahab than with his predecessors. He began to do so with the entrance of Elijah into the king's presence. We have no details as to the circumstances of Elijah's visit to Ahab. I have always pictured it as Elijah bursting into Ahab's throne room, but that's not being specified, and there's good reason to believe that one did not usually stride unannounced into the king's main hall. In any event, Elijah had a brief message from God to Ahab: "You are in for a few years of drought." Having said his piece, Elijah disappeared again.

Subsequently, Elijah became a man without much of a mission. God told him to go to the Wadi Cherith and hang out there. Wadis are river beds, and they do not provide very comfortable housing. They carry water for part of the year and blend into the desert the rest of the time. Elijah's orders were simply to be there and live on what God was providing for him. The method that God used to nourish Elijah was somewhat unconventional: Every morning and evening ravens would come and provide him with bread and meat. Let me assure you that I like ravens; they are very interesting birds, but their eating habits tend to leave something to be desired. So, I don't imagine that Elijah dined on plates with white napkins and utensiles, but he ate whatever dropped out of the ravens' mouth. Still, he was eating and drinking, as long as there was water in the wadi. Then it was time to move on.

God took care of Elijah. It was not exactly in luxury, but God didn't promise luxury. I would think that Elijah's serotonin levels were pretty low, and I imagine that they declined along with the water level in the wadi. Nevertheless, he continued to obey God. Good idea. I think I'm learning something from Elijah.